NJ Transit chief acknowledges rail cars moved into flood-prone area before superstorm Sandy

NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein acknowledged publicly on Wednesday that the agency actually moved rail cars and locomotives into its flood-prone Meadowlands rail yard for storage just before the yard was inundated by superstorm Sandy's floodwaters in October. The move resulted in millions in flood damage to the rail equipment.

“We brought some additional equipment in there to store during the storm,” Weinstein told members of the Senate Budget Committee during a hearing on the Christie Administration's transportation budget Wednesday morning. At the time, he said, "there was no reason to believe it would flood.”

Weinstein did not say how many rail cars were moved into the vulnerable spot, but that it won’t happen again. More than a quarter of the agency’s rail fleet was damaged during the storm, most at the maintenance facility. “We are informed by the experience,” he said. “We won’t be bringing equipment there in the future in the event we are faced with a similar situation as we were with Sandy.”

NJ Transit Spokesman John Durso, Jr. refused to say how many pieces of equipment were moved into harm’s way, saying "that specific information had not been previously provided due to security-related concerns." Durso has repeatedly cited “security” as a reason not to release details about NJ Transit’s movement of trains during Sandy.

However, he has not explained how security would be breached by making public the number of cars moved to a yard where all the train equipment sits on tracks in clear view to the public.

The flooding at the Meadows Maintenance Complex in Kearny, and at the agency's Hoboken yard - a location that Weinstein acknowledged on Wednesday is close to the Hudson River's waters - damaged 272 passenger cars and 70 locomotives. Weinstein said it amounted to more than $100 million in damage that NJ Transit is hoping will be reimbursed from its insurance and from federal emergency grant dollars.

Weinstein insisted Wednesday that the rail yards had never flooded before and that the agency’s officials never expected the yards to flood. “There was not reason to believe it would flood by Sandy.”

However, last summer - months before Sandy - NJ Transit officials received a report that explicitly showed the two yards sit in flood-prone areas.

NJ Transit faced a torrent of criticism from state legislators, rail riders whose commutes were disrupted by the reduction in rail cars, and rail advocates and its own employees, who questioned how the agency could leave equipment in flood-prone areas given the dire flood surge warnings weather forecasters had issued prior to Sandy’s making landfall. Before Wednesday, Weinstein had not publicly discussed that trains were actually moved to the Kearny yard.

NJ Transit is now seeking $450 million in reimbursement for system-wide damage and another $800 million for new projects to protect it against future floods.

Weinstein noted that during Hurricane Irene, the agency moved trains to a higher ground to a yard in Morrisville, but that after that hurricane, NJ Transit rail crews could not access the equipment because it was surrounded by flood waters in lower-lying areas in Trenton. He said the agency is looking for new locations to store the trains, but that the new locations have to be accessible.